Dating Mr. December

by Phillipa Ashley

  ‘Ah.’

  He took his hands from her waist. ‘And are you taking it?’

  ‘I—I don’t know. It’s a fantastic opportunity. And it means I could go back…’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so. Home.’ The world sounded hollow.

  ‘Then you’d better take it, sweetheart. If that’s what you really want.’

  Emma felt her stomach was somersaulting. Please, Will, her mind begged, tell me it’s not what you want. Tell me you want me to stay with you. Ask me, please…

  Will didn’t help her out, forcing her to fill the silence. ‘I’ve almost decided to… to go, but I feel… guilty at leaving everyone. The tourist office, the rescue squad, the friends I’ve made—’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll survive somehow,’ he replied bitterly. ‘I mean, we’ll miss you, Emma, but no one would stand in your way, not if that’s what you really want. I know what you’ve given up to come up here. It’s hardly the land of opportunity, not for someone like you.’

  Emma wanted to scream. Will couldn’t be saying this, she told herself. He couldn’t be agreeing with her—encouraging her to go. Surely he couldn’t actually want her to go. She tried again, a last-ditch attempt to make him say what she wanted to hear.

  ‘No, I suppose you’re right.’ She waited. ‘I suppose everyone will get by just fine without me. I can hardly expect them to bang on my door and beg me to stay, can I?’

  There. It was out and she couldn’t have put it any clearer without actually getting down on her knees and asking him.

  He had one last chance to ask her to stay and to tell her what she meant to him. The silence hung thick and heavy in the kitchen. And still Will said nothing. Distantly, she heard the throb of a ferryboat on the lake while he seemed to be struggling. For a second, he seemed uncertain but—no. There was no uncertainty when he spoke.

  ‘Emma—it’s been fantastic having you here. What you’ve done for us, for the team, has been amazing. No one, least of all me, will be glad to see you go, but you have to live your own life. We all do. We can’t force people to do something when their heart isn’t in it. No matter how much we want to. You understand that, don’t you?’

  Emma felt as if someone had taken hold of her insides and was knotting them slowly and viciously. Suddenly Will’s shirt seemed much too short with far too many of the buttons undone. As she tried to pull it further down her thighs, she noticed her feet were muddy.

  ‘I understand perfectly,’ she said.

  And though her legs had turned to jelly, though she felt sick and weak and knocked back, there was no way she would let him see her pain. Not ever. It didn’t sound like her voice, the next bit, speaking to him politely and calmly as if nothing had happened. As if she didn’t care at all that he had just sent her crashing to the ground with a few words.

  ‘I ought to leave. I need a shower and then I’d be grateful if you’d drive me home.’

  Freeing herself from her place between his thighs, she walked away. She’d actually reached the door to the hall before it came. His voice cut through the silence, more bitter and tired than she had ever heard before.

  ‘So you understand perfectly, do you?’

  She stopped, her hand on the doorknob.

  ‘You bloody well don’t understand, Emma. You can’t possibly.’

  She turned to face him.

  He was standing in the middle of the room and she could see, even from here, the tension in his big, big body.

  ‘You think you understand. You think you know everything.’

  ‘Will—’

  ‘You’ve heard the spin in the village, haven’t you?’

  Emma felt sick. She could hardly bear to see him like this.

  ‘Will. The bastard. Left poor old Kate at the altar without so much as a by-your-leave,’ he went on.

  ‘I—’

  ‘On a mission to sleep with every woman for fifty miles, then chucks them out as soon as the sun rises.’

  He was almost shouting now.

  ‘Will—’

  ‘Well, isn’t that what you’ve heard? Isn’t that the word on me?’

  ‘Stop this, please.’

  ‘No. I won’t. Not until you’ve answered me. What do you think you know about me?’

  She tried to reply but the words were so faint.

  ‘I can’t hear you, Emma.’

  Finally, she managed to meet his eyes and winced at the pain and bitterness they held.

  ‘Yes.’

  Expecting a cry of indignation, a shout, a denial, he simply nodded. ‘And is it a good tale, Emma? A feasible one? Do I live up to the image?’

  ‘Don’t do this to me, Will. Don’t make me answer.’

  ‘I’m waiting. I’m asking you, Emma, what do you believe?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she cried. ‘I really don’t and Will—hate me if you want, ignore me if you want, but I don’t care anymore. I don’t care what you did to Kate or why you did it, because you didn’t ask me to stay.’

  He sat down at the farmhouse table and looked dumbfounded. Emma was afraid. She felt like she’d felled an ox or hurt something wild and savage but she was resolute. He wouldn’t look at her, just sat there. Then, as she opened the door to the hall, he said, ‘Emma, it’s not easy for me to—to show my feelings. It’s—it’s not what you think. Please, this is all so sudden. Try and understand. I need more time and space.’

  The old cliché. It wasn’t even original and the new Emma didn’t settle for clichés or second best. It was all or nothing with Will.

  It looked like being nothing.

  Well, so be it, even if it hurt for a thousand years. She was determined she wouldn’t be used by any man, ever again. Wouldn’t be second-best or duped or conned and if that was harsh, if he didn’t understand, then so be it.

  ‘Will, if it’s time and space you need, you’ve got it. I’m leaving.’

  She made it out of the door this time, and then heard him add, in a low voice, ‘I’ll take you home.’

  ‘I need a shower first,’ she mumbled. And she did. She needed to wash all traces of Will away along with every shred of hope and faith and trust she’d had that he really cared about her. That he would ask her to stay with him—not for a day, a week, but forever. She reached the stairs before the absolute truth blinded her with hot tears.

  Her own words echoed in her mind. She loved Will as she’d never loved anyone before. In the end, what he’d done in the past to someone else didn’t matter anymore. Selfish, but true. It was what he’d done to her.

  And he hadn’t asked her to stay.

  Chapter 12

  Will had been in some bad situations. He’d had some close calls and been messed up pretty badly once or twice. He’d seen stuff people shouldn’t have to see out there on the hills. People he’d been sent to search for, to rescue—whose loved ones expected to see them back, a little red-faced, maybe a bit bruised, but, ultimately, safe.

  Except they hadn’t been safe. Would never be.

  It had cost him actual tears once or twice, privately of course, he didn’t mind admitting that. When he’d had to deal with the inconsolable grief of a wife, a son, or a daughter. This was nothing to that, he told himself, of course it wasn’t. It was only love. It didn’t deserve the pain he was feeling, the confusion. No one had died.

  Yet still it was hurting. No matter how much he rationalized it or tried to tell himself that, in the grand scheme of things, being left behind by someone he cared for was nothing, it was hurting.

  Because it was happening to him—and it wasn’t the first time.

  ***

  Emma’s dignity made it intact as far as the top step of Will’s stairs, before shattering as she reached the landing and stumbled into his room, locking the door behind her. Suddenly, she had no desire for a shower anymore, her only instinct was to run. This wasn’t a dream she would wake up from to a bright and sunny truth; it was a nightmare. He’d raised all her hopes only to let t
hem plummet to the ground.

  She asked herself how she could have been so blind. Will was never going to ask her to stay because he was never going to commit to her—or to any woman. Oh he liked her, loved her body, respected her, but that was as far as it went… not enough… once again someone hadn’t felt enough to fight for her.

  The fragile world she had begun to construct around her, the world in which she’d dared to hope he really cared about her—loved her—was shattering. No way was she going to be driven home by a man who’d just rejected her. She couldn’t have dropped a stronger hint. And what was it he’d said?

  ‘You have to live your own life. We can’t force people to do something when their heart isn’t in it. No matter how much we want to.’

  The tears fell again. He couldn’t have said it much plainer, could he? Then he’d added insult to injury with the oldest line in the book: ‘I need more time and space.’

  ‘Well, Will,’ she murmured softly, ‘you’ve got it.’

  Inside his room, her chest heaving, she tore his shirt from her body, sending the buttons pinging in her haste to get it off. She could still smell the faint aroma of his aftershave as she pulled it over her head and threw it on the floor.

  She hunted for her little black dress, eventually dragging it out from under the duvet they’d thrown on to the carpet while making love in the warm night. Her evening bag was lying by the mirror where he’d stripped off her clothes. Her shawl was still on the chair in the hall where Will had discarded it and there was no way she was going down to fetch it. As for her shoes… goodness knows what she was going to do about them.

  Her only thought was to get out of there as fast as possible, so she headed into the bathroom and turned on the shower letting the water run so that Will wouldn’t suspect what she was about to do. Back in the bedroom, she sat down heavily on the bed, almost breaking the zip of her tiny evening bag in her haste to find her mobile and call a taxi.

  As she scrambled for the phone, the tears of disappointment and frustration were blinding her. She had to get away—but first—breathing would be good. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she dragged in a few lungfuls of air. It was enough to allow her to pick up the phone again and remember that there had been another night when she’d been with Will and needed a taxi. The night in the Black Dog when Jan and Pete had gone home together.

  The night she’d spent at the rescue base waiting for Will. She hoped it would still be there in the dialed numbers and scrolled frantically through the memory for the taxi firm.

  There it was, she thought, sighing in relief, the last one on the list. Now all she needed was for someone in this godforsaken corner of England to be willing to come out here on a Sunday morning. She hoped the bit of cash in her bag would be enough or if the driver would take a card. If not, she’d have to get the rest from her flat. She’d pay the driver in chocolate, wine, or anything, if he’d come and get her out of this mess.

  The phone in the taxi office seemed to ring out forever before it was picked up. She didn’t know and didn’t care what the controller thought of her rant about coming as soon as possible. All she cared was that the taxi firm knew Ghyllside Cottage and would be there in thirty minutes. Now she had thirty minutes to find some shoes and to get out of this beautiful, awful house.

  Yes—shoes would be good. Even black deck-busting heels or trainers or fluffy slippers. Somehow she knew that any footwear in this house would be the size of boats. Will had big feet; she hadn’t needed to sleep with him to know that, but one thing was certain: she couldn’t go home in her bare feet. She had to negotiate the gravel drive for a start, and she didn’t know how she was going to do that. Knot the sheet, perhaps, and shimmy down the ivy…

  A cry of frustration escaped her lips. The situation would have been funny if it hadn’t been so gut-wrenchingly humiliating. The knife twisted again. This must have been Kate’s home before Will had turned her out. She must have spent weekends here at least—and if she had stayed here, what had she left behind?

  Her eyes took in the chest of drawers under the window, the bedside cupboard where he kept his bumper supply of condoms and the huge oak wardrobe against the wall. Walking over to it, she unlatched the heavy door. Nothing doing. Just a few suits and shirts and jackets. Some smart shoes on the bottom of the wardrobe—all size twelve at least.

  Emma slammed the door shut.

  In the corner of the room she noticed a door to a walk-in cupboard. Pulling it open, she searched for a light switch. There wasn’t one, so she set to hunting in the semidarkness for walking boots, flip-flops, slippers—anything a jilted bride might have kept here and forgotten.

  Emma was almost sobbing now—the taxi was due in ten minutes and all she’d unearthed were fins and a set of crampons. All were now littering his bedroom floor, in her frantic quest to find something to put on her feet. Grabbing at a pair of trainers that looked promising in the gloom, she flung them at the wall in disgust as she realized they were his.

  In desperation, she searched the top shelf of the cupboard. A shopping bag with foreign symbols on it caught her eye and she snatched it down. There, inside, still in the polythene wrapper, was a pair of exquisite, beaded sandals. Emma concluded they must have been a gift from one of his business trips or a forgotten souvenir from an exotic holiday.

  One of them at least had great taste and she suspected it was Will. If Kate had any real discernment she wouldn’t have been with a pig like him…

  Past caring now, she ripped open the bag and put them on. They were a little too small but she was pathetically grateful for small mercies this morning. It dawned on her that this was the ultimate humiliation, now she was literally in Kate’s shoes, but anything was better than having to explain why she was barefoot to the taxi driver.

  Now all she had to do was to get out of his house.

  Clutching her bag, her feet slipping over the heels of the stolen sandals, Emma gently turned the key in the lock and slowly inched the door open. It creaked slightly and she held her breath, dreading the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs, his voice asking her if she was ready to leave, embarrassed, scared…

  There were no footsteps on the stairs.

  She nudged the door wider and crept on to the landing, listening for him. Was he still in the kitchen or in some other part of the house? There was only silence so, taking her chance, she slipped softly down the oak staircase and into the hall.

  As she crept across the tiles, she saw the kitchen door was ajar but she still couldn’t hear anyone moving about. Her pashmina was still draped on the leather chair by the front door, so she snatched it up before twisting the handle. The door opened out on to the gravel drive he’d carried her over twelve hours before, laughing and happy, up to his bed.

  Outside, Will’s black four-by-four stood on the drive.

  Emma slipped past and crept around the side of the house where the gravel drive curved away up a gentle slope to wrought-iron entrance gates set between two stone pillars. The dull throb of a diesel engine broke the silence as the taxi reversed between the entrance posts. Hitching up the skirt of her silk dress, she hurried towards it.

  ***

  Will stood outside on the jetty, gulping in fresh air. He knew he couldn’t stay out here any longer, he had to go to her.

  Her words had rocked him.

  ‘I don’t care what you did to Kate or why you did it because it doesn’t matter. What matters is you didn’t ask me to stay.’

  She’d said she wanted him, despite what he might have done to Kate. No matter what she thought about him, what she’d heard, she still cared about him—just as he was, with all his faults. All she wanted was to know that he wanted her.

  It seemed so little to ask and yet so much.

  He couldn’t let her go like this. Whatever happened, she deserved an explanation. Though the thought of telling her the truth, of baring his soul, went against every instinct. Will did not wash his dirty linen in public. He kept his priv
ate life private, his most intimate secrets firmly under lock and key, exactly where they should be.

  But it had to happen and, deep down, he knew that sooner or later someone would try to get close, pierce his armor. He’d kept himself safe for two years but Emma had got so very, very close.

  Will raked his hand through his hair and groaned. She was going. She was testing him. Not even an idiot like him could mistake that. But so soon?

  And he did not ask people to stay. He did not beg women to stay.

  Not now. Not ever again.

  He’d known all along what Emma must think. She was bound to have heard the rumors in the village. Someone they both knew, a colleague maybe, anyone, in fact, within a ten-mile radius could have told Emma what he’d done to Kate. They’d be ready and willing, he thought bitterly, to give their own version of what had happened two years before. He was surprised that they hadn’t embroidered it to the extent of him leaving her at the altar.

  Then again, he had only himself to blame. In Emma’s eyes, he’d lived up to his reputation—and how. Seduced her, rejected her—twice—kept her dangling on the end of his personal rope. Then the worst part: he’d lulled her into a false sense of security until she had felt safe with him.

  Only to let her down.

  He shaded his eyes with his hand and stared across the lake towards the opposite shore and her flat. He couldn’t let her go like this. He had to go up to his room and tell her the truth. Swallow his pride and find the courage to tell her about Kate and him. Make her understand what had happened, how he had felt, what it had done to him. There would be no going back, he knew that. If he went up there now and opened himself up, he would have to ask her to stay.

  Will shivered. Even though the sun was still warm on the wooden jetty, a cooling breeze skittered across the lake and raised the goose bumps on his forearms. Then he heard it. Distorted, distant but clear: a diesel engine idling. He twisted round to see a taxi parked at the top of his drive. Its driver was climbing out and opening the rear door.

  And she was climbing in.

  ‘Emma!’

  She looked back at him as he broke into a run to catch up with her.